[PyKDE] PyQwt win32 binary?

[Boudewijn Rempt]

Well, I can't honestly say I wasn't disappointed when I heard that there
wouldn't be new free binary PyQt releases for Windows. Especially since it
coincided both with the publication of my PyQt article in Dr Dobbs and the
planned release of Kura. But I wasn't suprised either - when I was
wangling Troll Tech's Suetelane Paludo for a license for Phil I don't
think she reckoned on him making the product available for free...

But on the other hand, in my opinion, PyQt remains as free as it ever was,
nobody charges anything for it, and it should compile easily on Windows -
if you have Qt for Windows. (I have a license, but that's strictly for
journalistic purposes - I don't think I can produce software with it.
Besides, I haven't got a Windows compiler). Or you can port the X11 GPL'd
Qt to Windows, in the same way as GTK was ported - by linking in some X
libraries. You're free to do that, and compile PyQt against it and
distribute the dll (with source!).

My interim solution is to make my app work with PyQt 2.2, and offer CD's
of the app for a lot of money (about $50) - when I have enough money I'll
buy Blackadder and upgrade for the Windows users. In the long term I fear
that commercializing PyQt for Windows will harm its position vis-a-vis
wxWindows and PyGTK. It's amazing that people actually think that PyGTK
works on Windows, but there you are. And perhaps wxWindows actually
installs nowadays without major magic - I don't know.

I've tried the BlackAdder demo today. There are quite a few rough spots
(try installing it in ~/bin, instead of /usr and it can't find Python, you
can't choose a monospaced font for the editor), but it does look
promising. It's almost a pity I've got my own routine of Qt Designer,
Pyuic, bash and Nedit... I do think hobbyists like to distribute their
work, though, and perhaps a Qt-like license would have been more
agreeable: Personal Blackadder for free software, professional for
commercial, closed or in-house software. Just like Archaeopteryx did with
Wing IDE (which I find very good, by the way). But in the matter of
licenses, he who writes the code gets to choose the license ;-).

About PyKDE: Qt 2.2.x is so complete I don't really miss KDE support
myself, but it would be nice to have the application integrate better
in a KDE desktop or talk DCOP. Is there actually any start towards KDE 2.x
compatibility?

By the way - have there been any moves towards getting PyQt included in
the major Linux distributions? Shall I write a few emails?

Boudewijn Rempt